Pokey Allen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Pokey Allen | ||
|---|---|---|
| Title | Head Coach | |
| College | Portland State Boise State |
|
| Sport | Football | |
| Born | January 23, 1943 | |
| Place of birth | Superior, Montana United States |
|
| Died | December 30, 1996 (aged 53) | |
| Place of death | Missoula, Montana | |
| Career highlights | ||
| Overall | 87-41-2 (.677) | |
| Coaching stats | ||
| College Football DataWarehouse | ||
| Playing career | ||
| 1961-64 1965-67 1967 |
Utah - NCAA BC Lions - CFL Edmonton - CFL |
|
| Position | QB/CB | |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | ||
| 1968-72 1973-76 1977-82 1983-84 1985 1986-92 1993-96 |
Simon Fraser (ass't) Simon Fraser - (co-coach) Montana - (ass't) E. Washington - (ass't) California - (ass't) L.A. Express (USFL) (ass't) Portland (USFL) - DC Portland State Boise State |
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Ernest Duncan "Pokey" Allen, Jr. (January 23, 1943 – December 30, 1996) was a college football head coach at Portland State and Boise State.
Contents |
[edit] Playing career
Allen played college football as a quarterback and cornerback at Utah, where he led the Utes to a 32-6 victory over West Virginia in the 1964 Liberty Bowl and was named the game's most valuable player.[1][2] Professionally, Allen played three seasons with the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League.[3]
[edit] Early coaching career
Following his CFL playing career, Pokey Allen became an assistant coach in 1968 at Simon Fraser in Burnaby, B.C., Canada.[4] Five years later, he was named co-coach of the team. After nine years at Simon Fraser, Allen returned to the U.S. and became an assistant coach at Montana in 1977, followed by other assistant coaching positions with Eastern Washington and California.[4]
In 1983, Allen signed on as an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Express of the USFL, the new professional league which played its games in the spring. Two years later, he moved to Portland, Oregon, as defensive coordinator for the Portland Breakers.[4]
[edit] Portland State
Following the folding of the USFL, Allen became the head coach at Portland State in 1986. Allen coached the Vikings to its first football playoffs, including back-to-back appearances in the Division II finals in 1987 and 1988, though the team lost both games. He was named coach of the year in the Western Football Conference five times.[5]
Allen was as much noted for his personality as his coaching. He took part in a humorous series of television commercials to sell tickets for Portland State games, with stunts such as dancing the Hokey Pokey, betting a month's salary on attendance at the game, allowing fans to vote on whether to pick heads or tails at the coin toss, and most famously, a series of commercials in which Allen promised to have a meteor, an elephant, or himself (shot out of a cannon) land in the backyard of anyone not buying Portland State season tickets.[6][7]
[edit] Boise State
In 1992, Allen's Division II Vikings defeated the I-AA Boise State Broncos 52-26. When Boise State went on to lose their final four games that season, head coach Skip Hall was fired and Allen and his entire coaching staff were hired away from Portland State.[8]
In his second year at Boise State, he led the Broncos to the Division I-AA finals, but lost 24-14 to Jim Tressel's Youngstown State Penguins.
Allen kept his reputation for publicity stunts: during the run to the 1994 championship game, Allen challenged local supporters, promising to ride a horse in downtown Boise if Bronco Stadium were sold out. The stadium was sold out, and Allen kept his promise.[9]
[edit] Head coaching record
| Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl | Coaches# | AP° | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portland State Vikings (Western Football Conference) (1986–92) | |||||||||
| 1986 | Portland State | 6-5-0 | |||||||
| 1987 | Portland State | 11-2-1 | 1st | 2-1 Div. II finals | |||||
| 1988 | Portland State | 11-3-1 | 1st | 3-1 Div. II finals | |||||
| 1989 | Portland State | 9-4-0 | 1st | 1-1 Div. II quarterfinals | |||||
| 1990 | Portland State | 6-5-0 | |||||||
| 1991 | Portland State | 11-3-0 | 1st | 2-1 Div. II semifinals | |||||
| 1992 | Portland State | 9-4-0 | 1st | 2-1 Div. II semifinals | |||||
| Portland State: | 63-26-2 | ||||||||
| Boise State Broncos (Big Sky Conference) (1992–95) | |||||||||
| 1993 | Boise State | 3-8-0 | |||||||
| 1994 | Boise State | 13-2-0 | 6-1 | 1st | 3-1 Div. I-AA finals | ||||
| 1995 | Boise State | 7-4-0 | |||||||
| Boise State Broncos (Big West Conference) (1996–96) | |||||||||
| 1996 | Boise State | 1-1 | |||||||
| Boise State: | 24-15 | ||||||||
| Total: | 87-41-2 | ||||||||
| National Championship Conference Title Conference Division Title | |||||||||
| †Indicates BCS bowl game. #Rankings from final Coaches Poll. | |||||||||
[edit] Cancer and legacy
Shortly after the 1994 championship game, Allen was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of muscle cancer. He returned to coach the Broncos in 1995, but after a recurrence of cancer a year later, took a leave of absence until the final two games of the 1996 season, against New Mexico State and Idaho. His win against New Mexico State was his first and only Division I-A win. He resigned following the Idaho game, and died three weeks later at the age of 53.[1]
Boise State's come-from-behind, trick play-laden victory in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, which brought even more national attention to the program that Allen helped build, came 10 years to the day after Allen's burial.[9]
Allen was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1998.[5]
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Pokey Allen, 53, Football Coach". New York Times. December 31, 1996 (subscription required). http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9502EFDC1030F932A05751C1A960958260. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
- ^ Sorenson, Mike (December 20, 2006). "Atlantic City contest quietly became historically significant". Deseret Morning News. http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650216411,00.html. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
- ^ "BC Lions All-Time Roster". BC Lions. http://www.bclions.com/index.php?module=page&id=3057. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
- ^ a b c Wheeler, Ken (December 30, 1996). "Pokey Allen 1943-1996: A short life lived to its fullest". The Oregonian.
- ^ a b "Pokey Allen". Oregon Sports Hall of Fame and Museum. http://www.oregonsportshall.com/inductee/inductee98/allen.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
- ^ Goe, Ken (December 6, 1991). "The same old Pokey". The Oregonian.
- ^ Frei, Terry (August 25, 1990). "It's just about kickoff time for PSU stunts". The Oregonian.
- ^ "A Brief Look: Portland State Rivalry". Scout.com. October 3, 2005. http://boisestate.scout.com/2/446944.html. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
- ^ a b Anderson, John Gottberg (May 6, 2007). "Oh Boise!". The Bend Bulletin. http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070506/TRAVEL/705060306/1075/TRAVEL&nav_category=TRAVEL. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
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